


If You Go Down To The Woods Today

by Huggle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Derek, but is any coming, derek needs help, maybe creepy?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It might be a big surprise.  It isn't a nice one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Go Down To The Woods Today

**Author's Note:**

> Set pre _Heart Monitor_ in Season one.

On Tuesday, Derek followed the Alpha as it prowled around an empty old warehouse in the south quarter. He kept as far back as he could without losing it, picking up the scent of its trail when it loped over the roof and out of his sight. He didn’t want it sneaking up behind him, either – the odds on him winning a fight with it weren’t good.

Not terrible, but they would be better if he had a pack to back him up. Which he didn’t.

Scott had made it clear being around him was such a trial, with a typical teenager ‘oh, woe is me, my life is so damn hard right now, _I love Allison_ ’ drama-fest. When the Alpha called him out, he would know all about his life being hard. 

And no, Derek decided. He definitely had not – subconsciously or otherwise – been considering what it might be like to have Scott McCall as his pack. 

Even if he _had_ \- Scott technically already had a pack, so they would have to be co-opted, and Stiles was a deal breaker.

Besides, he didn’t think he was up to managing them both.

He lost the Alpha on the edge of the forest. For a moment, he thought about just renting a room in town for the night instead of going back to the house. It had been there, he knew it. He wasn’t too proud to admit the thought of it skulking around outside, or climbing in through the missing roof and rubbing its scent into everything it could, creeped him out.

Twice, he’d woken from nightmares of it standing over him, staring down at him while he slept.

He still wasn’t wholly sure they had been nightmares. If they hadn’t, the question of why he was still alive and not torn apart was one he’d had to find an answer to at some point.

But the scent was gone, swallowed up by the million other scents of the woodland, and the trail too well hidden by a creature of greater years and experience than him.

For tonight, at least.

:: ::

Come Wednesday, just before dusk, he trailed Scott to the vet clinic. He stayed outside for almost an hour, just in case. But he couldn’t smell the Alpha anywhere around, and then Stiles appeared and the sheer weirdness of half the stuff the boy said drove Derek off the roof and back to where he’d parked his car two streets over.

It said a lot that Stiles was odd enough to have a werewolf beating the retreat.

He drove around town for a while, watching out for threats on four legs and two, but everything seemed typically quiet for mid-week. Maybe nothing was going to happen tonight. Not that it would help his sleep any – it was hard to close his eyes when he might wake up to something or someone standing over him that wanted to hurt him. 

Derek had taken the corner where the road sloped up a little before dropping back down between the two hills, when the car’s lights flickered and then went out.

All the power to the car died at the same time. He coasted carefully to a halt, the car ending up nose to the side of the road, and got out. Looking under the hood didn’t tell him much. Nothing was obviously wrong – the plugs looked fine and a quick check underneath didn’t show up any telltale leaks.

He tried starting the car again and gave up after the third attempt in case he flooded the engine.

He was maybe a ten minute walk from the house. But he’d had the car serviced a month before and it had been fine until tonight. 

It had cut out in a great place for an ambush. 

Derek got out again and decided there wasn’t anything else for it. Abandon the car, concentrate on making it home and then tomorrow come back for his vehicle.

If this was some kind of set up, the more time he wasted lingering by the car, the easier he was making it for them to take him out.

He jumped up the embankment and kept to the shadows as much as he could as he headed for home.

:: ::

He’d gone maybe a few hundred yards when he knew something was watching him. Not an uncommon feeling when he was walking through the woods. Like this, he was human enough to startle some of the wildlife and not make them run. They knew there was something odd about him, but not what, and so stayed to watch at a safe distance.

But it wasn’t a squirrel or a fox or a badger. It was something else, something with a cold intelligence.

It wasn’t the Alpha. Derek would have known if that was the thing stalking him through the trees.

All the same, the sensation of its eyes on him made him want to walk faster. 

Made him want to change.

He stopped, turned to look back. No one was there – even though he knew that there was. 

Somewhere around here, around _him_ , moving closer, moving in.

Derek lashed out as cold fingers settled on the back of his neck. His arm was intercepted, seized in a grip that was strong enough to halt the blow and then subjected to enough to force to send him to his knees.

He twisted his head round, trying to see what held him. Somehow, even while holding on to him, it was able to stay at the periphery of his vision. Even with his true sight, he got little more than a vague outline.

“It’s alright,” a voice said. The pitch was off, gender indeterminable. “You shouldn’t try to fight me. What are you doing out here all alone?”

He struggled harder as the hands moved from his arm and shifted to reach down his chest. Arms wrapped around his torso. He was unbalanced, pulled back against a body that was freezing cold against his own. The strength was incredible. He didn’t doubt that just a little more force and it would snap his spine in a second.

Desperate, he dragged his claws down one of the arms. A sickly smell wafted up at him – no blood, no rich heady scent to test his control. It smelled like something that had sickened and crawled somewhere dark and dank to die.

The voice chuckled at him. “I frighten you. But I shouldn’t. Oh, little one. Do you know how long I’ve waited out here? For someone. For anyone?”

Derek snarled at it. He shifted, and wasted himself railing against whatever had a hold of him. Thrashing, snarling, but unable to loosen its grip, unable to escape. Finally, panting and exhausted, he relented, and sagged in its arms.

“What are you?” How long it had waited? Unless it had come while he’d been gone, he didn’t know what it meant. He’d grown up in these woods. Played here. Learned here. 

Lost almost everything here. And this was not something he or his family had ever encountered.

“You wouldn’t comprehend,” it said. “Or maybe you would. You understand being alone.”

Lips brushed his cheek. As cold as the body he was pinned against, back aching under the pressure. Its breath roiled over him and it smelled like death. The kiss burned.

“I’m not alone,” he lied. 

“No?” He could hear the smirk in its voice. “Go on then. Call for help. Will anyone come?”

No. No one would. Scott would ignore a call or text or drag his heels in replying. If he howled, Scott would hear it – the Alpha certainly would – but he doubted either one would race to come help him.

“I would come,” it told him. “I would keep you safe. I will. Keep you.”

He realised then that he couldn’t hear its heart.

::

Deputy Harkins blipped his siren at the car as he approached, in case it was a couple of the local kids who’d pulled in to fool around.

Hell of a place to pick, where any oncoming car wouldn’t see them in time if it was doing a reasonable pace. He didn’t know when kids had gotten so dumb, and then realised people probably thought the same about his generation when they were teenagers.

The only things that changed were the music, the clothes, and the drugs.

He got out, shining his torch on the car as he walked over to it. Empty. Driver door open. No keys though.

Weird.

Harkins rested his hand on the hood. It was still warm, so whoever had abandoned the vehicle hadn’t done so very long ago. He cast the torch beam up either embankment and then further along the road. He couldn’t see anyone, but if the car had broken down the driver might had decided to walk to get help.

Harkins pressed the call button on his radio. If no one had reached a phone or contacted the garage in town, he’d start driving on slowly up the road, in case he found them. 

He was about to tell dispatch what he’d found when the weirdest sound echoed out of the woods. He dropped the torch and shifted his hand to his gun.

It sounded like a howl, but whatever had made it – it sounded so desperate, so in pain, and then it cut off as abruptly as it started.

He had to wait a few moments before he was sure he could speak and not have his voice waver.

“Dispatch,” he said, “I want to call in an abandoned car.” He gave the licence plate, asked them to arrange a tow, and told them he’d start driving along the road as planned.

He closed the driver’s door over as he did, wincing at the sound in the otherwise quiet night. Too quiet, like the entire woodland was frozen in place and too scared to move.

Harkins was very grateful to get back in his car, and lock the doors. He did drive along the road, maybe a little faster than he should have but he couldn’t shake that unsettled feeling. Like when he was eight, and they’d moved into that new house, and he knew there was something wrong in the corner of his room. He never saw anything but he knew it all the same.

Even though he’d stayed there until he reached eighteen and left for the city, even though he was old enough by then to know better... It was still what he knew.

He never did find anybody walking along the road.

**Author's Note:**

> Just very recently got into Teen Wolf - loving it but only about half way through season one.


End file.
